Tag Archives: society

Presidential Office empties the most famous store in Tajikistan

MARCH 28 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — The tops floors of the most prominent department store in Tajkiistan’s capital, the Soviet-era TSUM, are eerily quiet.

Most of the traders who sold mobile phones, clothes and Tajik national mementos to foreign tourists have quit their leases. They said the Presidential Administration took over the company that owned the store earlier this year and has forced up rent.

Aziz, a 26-year-old man who sold Tajik-themed gifts, told The Conway Bulletin’s Dushanbe correspondent that rent used to be around $7 per square metre.

“Now they want us to pay more than $20 per square meter,” Aziz said, the anger clearly audible in his voice.

He shook his head, more to himself than to anybody else, and continued to pack up his products into boxes scattered across the floor. Like most of the other small traders he was quitting TSUM.

“I am moving out because I cannot pay the rent. Trade is not good in TSUM, not so many people come nowadays,” he said.

Traders said that a month ago, President Emomali Rakhmon’s Executive Office, which is headed by his daughter Ozoda Rakhmon, took control of the company that ran TSUM. The Investment and State Property Control Committee said that TSUM was privatised illegally in the 1990s. Officially, TSUM has now been re-nationalised although critics of Mr Rakhmon have said that it is now effectively under the control of his family.

Built in 1960’s, TSUM is one of the few remaining Soviet-built buildings in Dushanbe and had been one of the most popular trading centres. But Tajikistan is hurting from a sharp economic downturn. The Bulletin’s correspondent said that while bigger shops selling various Western brands were still operating on the ground floor of TSUM, the first and second floors were almost entirely empty.

Mr Rakhmon’s Presidential Administration has not commented on allegations that it has inflated rent at TSUM but the accusations will bolster critics who accuse the president of corruption.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakhstan diverts route to driving licence

MARCH 29 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — In a move designed to improve driving standards, the Kazakh government scrapped rules that forced learner drivers to take lessons at specialist driving schools before they can sit a test.

Previously, it was incumbent on the specialist driving schools to approve learners as ready to step up to take a driving test. This, the government said, added cost, bureaucracy and corruption that was putting people off taking driving exams.

Kazakhstan has one of the worst ratios of deadly accidents on its roads. In 2013, the World Health Organisation said that deaths by car accidents in Kazakhstan averaged 24.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rate among countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus and around four times higher than the European average. These are often attributable to poor roads or poorly maintained vehicles, but also to bad driving.

An official in the interior ministry told the Conway Bulletin on condition of anonymity that the new rules were designed to simplify government procedures, cut red tape and encourage people to sit a driving exam.

“It is done for simplification. If a person knows the rules, has some driving skills and he or she can pass the exams, we do not think it is necessary to make them study in driving schools,” he said.

Unsurprisingly, driving instructors were less than impressed.

The Kazakh Association of Driving Schools said that the government’s new rules may actually worsen the quality of driving in the country.

Learner driver Akbota Mulkibayeva also doubted the new system would eradicate corruption.

“It is sad because there will be even more bribes to pass the test now,” she said, emphasising Kazakhstan’s shifting and hard to eradicate corruption issues.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kyrgyz civil society advocates push for greater influence

MARCH 29/30 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 250 delegates from Kyrgyzstan’s civil society gathered in the conference centre of a Bishkek hotel to discuss, argue and chew over just how they can play a more prominent role in holding the authorities to account and influencing the country’s development.

Organisers have hailed the meeting as groundbreaking for Central Asia which since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 has been driven by top-down decision-making. Civil society is able to influence events at a very local level in Kyrgyzstan but higher up, except perhaps through the ballot box and through revolutions, little is possible.

Rita Karasartova, Director of the Institute of Social Analysis, and one of the organisers of the forum dubbed ‘I Care’, said that the movement had taken momentum and inspiration from a conference organised last year to discuss potential changes to the Kyrgyz constitution.

“We were concerned about possible big risks of this proposal, and we wanted to speak up about them in front of the Government on the central square,” she told a Conway Bulletin correspondent. “Despite some parliamentary factions accusing us of preparing coup d’état, our protests were fruitful because the President cancelled the proposed constitutional changes.”

At the ‘I Care’ meeting judicial reforms, MPs pay and the failure of governments to deliver on election promises were hot topics — a reflection of how free Kyrgyzstan’s society is compared to the rest of the region.

Some, though, were sceptical of the reasons for the conference.

Anastasia, 23, a student in Bishkek, said: “Such forums do not happen just by themselves. There must be foreign supporters that promote them to have such activities.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakhstan allows headscarves in school

MARCH 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s minister of education Yerlan Sagadiyev said school councils were free to allow headscarves into the classroom. The declaration follows a public request to allow kimeshek headdress, considered part of Kazakh traditional dress, thus not in conflict with the government’s ban on wearing religious clothing items. Mr Sagadiyev’s declaration has now opened the way for more exceptions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Architect who added curves to Azerbaijan’s skyline dies

MARCH 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Zaha Hadid, known for designing some of the world’s most cutting edge buildings, including the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, died in Miami of a heart attack aged 65.

Hadid had been admitted to hospital for bronchitis when she suffered the heart attack, her publicist said.

Tributes poured in from around the world for Hadid, a British citizen of Iraqi descent, who pushed the boundaries of building design throughout her career.

Her buildings were typically full of curves and melted into the surrounding landscape, urban and natural. She is probably, globally, best known for designing the swimming arena for the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Phaeno Science Park in Wolfsburg, Germany.

But Hadid also left her mark in the Central Asia/South Caucasus region by designing a museum in Baku named after Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s former president and the father of current president Ilham Aliyev.

The Heydar Aliyev Centre opened in 2012 to international acclaim. In 2014, London’s Design Museum gave Hadid its design of the year award.

“Located in a part of the world associated with flying carpets and magic lanterns, the levitating soft white peaks of Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre feel indigenous,” the Design Museum said. “Hadid has made a topologist’s dream into a practical reality shaped by hypnotically fluid forms. A masterwork of invention and execution.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Dollarisation grows in Georgia

MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian Central Bank said the dollarisation of Georgia’s economy continued to rise in February, as US dollar deposits grew to 68.4% of the total, the highest level since October 2010. A high dollarisation of deposits suggests that bank customers’ trust in the local currency in waning.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Uzbek capital closes tram lines

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The mayor of Uzbekistan’s capital, Rakhmonbek Usmonov, ordered officials to shut down tram lines across the city and sell most of the ageing trolley cars. The city administration had already started dismantling some of the lines. Almaty, in Kazakhstan, has also said it is phasing out its Soviet-era tram system.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Children in Armenia stunted, UN WFP reports

MARCH 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint report from the UN’s World Food Programme and Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that around 19% of Armenian children under the age of five are stunted, a consequence of widespread malnourishment in the country. The report also noted that around 15% of the surveyed pool is overweight. This is commonly known as a “double malnutrition burden” which can become a public health concern if it spreads across the population. The report concluded that the Armenian government needs to take action to invert this negative trend.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

UK introduces new visa process for Kazakh citizens

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UK government introduced a new Super Priority visa service for citizens of Kazakhstan. The new service will cost an extra £750 ($1,060) in addition to the consular fees and will ensure delivery within 24 hours. The government also said the new process can be used to apply for long term, multi- entry visas. “Last year the UK issued over 15,000 UK visas for Kazakhstani citizens,” Carolyn Browne, British ambassador to Kazakhstan said in a statement. London is a favoured destination for Kazakhstan’s wealthy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh ministries ban smart phones

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Government ministries in Kazakhstan have banned smart phones from buildings to try and stop official documents being leaked. The ban, apparently, was to try and stop officials from photographing documents with their smart phone and then sending them on to people using WhatsApp. Kazakhstan has launched a number of drives over the past few years to try and professionalise its civil service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)